Runaway Trump Train Picks Up Speed As Aides Can't Grab The Controls

The RNC is distancing itself. Even Trump's kids seem powerless.

UNITED STATES - JULY 20: Donald Trump, flanked by campaign manager Paul Manafort and daughter Ivanka, checks the podium early Thursday afternoon in preparation for accepting the GOP nomination to be President at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio on Wednesday July 20, 2016. (Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

Bill Clark via Getty Images
Donald Trump, flanked by campaign manager Paul Manafort and daughter Ivanka, checks the podium at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland on July 20.

WASHINGTON ― Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, has had success dealing with hard-to-manage dictatorial types, from Imelda Marcos of the Philippines to Jonas Savimbi of Angola to Viktor Yanukovych of Ukraine.

But he is described by close friends as “frustrated” beyond measure by his inability to manage Trump in any sense.

Reince Priebus, the pliable chair of the Republican National Committee, went to extraordinary lengths to legitimize Trump ― but now the RNC is throwing up its hands and distancing itself.

Even longtime Trump friends ― he does have a few, such as former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani ― are shaking their heads at what they regard as his self-destructive knack for saying awful things at the worst times.

And insiders say Trump’s children ― said to be a moderating influence at times ― have neither the political knowledge nor the clout with their dad to restrain him, assuming that they indeed want to.

In all, the world of Republican operatives, insiders and elected officials has concluded ― rather too late in the game ― that Trump is an unmanageable mess who can only win the presidency if Julian Assange, Vladimir Putin or a prosecutor somewhere destroys Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

“This election is going to be decided by outside events,” said a patient but perhaps overly optimistic Trump adviser. “If, that is, we can figure out how to get the candidate to use them.”

In a text to The Huffington Post, Manafort flatly denied the essence of a tweet by respected CNBC and New York Times reporter John Harwood saying Manafort had given up on the campaign, and said campaign spokesman Jason Miller would soon release a statement. Miller, a few minutes later, tweeted:

Priebus’ response to Trump’s feud with the Khan family, for example, was to state on CNN: “I think this family should be off limits.”

And Tuesday, in response to a HuffPost query about Trump’s statements questioning the legitimacy of the country’s elections, the committee suggested posing the question to Trump’s campaign, instead. “I would ask the campaign to clarify what they mean,” said RNC spokeswoman Lindsay Walters.

Trump’s post-convention bender has put his party leadership in a nearly impossible situation. For weeks before Cleveland, Republican National Committee officials pushed the idea that Trump would unify the party at the convention and come out ready to take on Clinton.

But after a rocky convention that included a prime-time speech from a rival who refused to endorse Trump and his own wife’s plagiarized remarks, party officials were privately explaining the difficulties in dealing with their nominee.

Trump does not take well to criticism, one official said, so any critique has to be prefaced with lavish praise ― as if dealing with a child.

One RNC member told HuffPost on condition of anonymity that Priebus routinely tells members that he frequently must “talk Trump down from a ledge,” and that the campaign would be in even worse shape if he didn’t.